photography to pay his rent. On the second-floor-back was a dressmaker
who could not collect her bills; while in the rear was a laundress who
washed for the tenants. Lastly, there was Mrs. Martha Munger, Stephen
Carlin's sister, who occupied the third floor both front and back, over
the laundress's quarters, the one chimney serving them both.

While the evil eye of the skylight, despite its dishonorable calling,
might have been put to some good use during the day, it can be safely
said that it was of no earthly, and for that matter of no heavenly, use
during the night. Nor did anything else in the way of illumination take
its place. My Lady Dowager's patrons were too poor or too stingy to
furnish even a single burner up and down the three flights. The excuse
was that the rays of the arc-light, blazing away on the opposite side
of the street, were not only powerful enough to shine through the
weather-beaten hall door covering the entrance but, still further, to
illuminate the rickety staircase--the very staircase up which Stephen
Carlin was now groping in answer to Martha's letter.

She had heard his heavy tread on the creaky steps, and was watching
for him with the door ajar--an inch at first, and then wide open, her
kerosene lamp held over the railing to give him light.

"Oh, but I'm glad you've come, Stephen. I was getting worried. I was
afraid maybe you didn't get the letter. It's black dark outside, isn't
it?" and she glanced at the cheap clock on the mantel behind her. "Come
in, the kettle was boiling over when I heard you. I'll talk to you in a
minute."

He followed with only a pressure of her hand, and, without a word of
greeting, seated himself near a table. In the same quiet, silent way
he watched her as she busied herself about the apartment, lifting the
kettle from the stove, adjusting the wick of the lamp which had begun to
smoke from the draft of the open door, taking from a shelf two cups and
saucers and from a tin bread box a loaf and some crackers.

When, in one of her journeys to and fro, she passed where the light of
the lamp fell full upon her round face, framed in its white cap and long
strings, he gave a slight start. There were dark circles below her eyes
and heavy lines near the corners of her mouth--signs he had not seen
since the month she had spent in the Marine Hospital when the plague
was stamped out. He noticed, too, that her robust figure, with its broad
shoulders and capacious bosom,